Weebly users’ data leaked: how can you protect your own passwords?

Weebly, a popular ‘drag and drop’ build your own website company, has become the latest target for hackers as the company announced a huge data leak of customer data.

Weebly, which is based in San Francisco, has begun notifying customers of a serious data breach which occurred earlier this year. According to LeakedSource, over 43,000,000 customers had their details stolen with usernames, email addresses, passwords and IP addresses all obtained.

Fortunately for customers the stolen passwords were well-secured with a ‘hashing algorithm bycrypt’ which means that hackers may not have been able to use them. What’s more, Weebly has assured users that credit card information was never stored.

Of course, as with any data leak, the company is encouraging users past and present to change their passwords just to be on the safe side.

Protecting your passwords

This latest hack highlights the importance of creating strong passwords. Your password is a vital secret. It is the final key to your emails, your social media and your bank account, so it needs to be resolute.

Always pick a password which contains a mixture of uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers and symbols and think carefully about who you tell and where you store it.

Finally, you should always make sure to vary your passwords and not use the same one for every web service that you use. This means that if you are unlucky enough to have your password leaked, they won’t be able to get into every single one of your accounts.

Here at ECL we have extensive experience in protecting businesses against the latest online threats including malware, hacks, viruses, spam and phishing scams. We can offer support and advise you on the best methods of protecting your business. For more information, please call us on 01268 575300 or email us on info@ecl.co.uk